


a griffin and a wyrm

by coe



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-21
Updated: 2014-12-21
Packaged: 2018-03-02 17:02:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2819624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coe/pseuds/coe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Come sunrise, Sif finds herself lying down on her back upon a flowery hilltop with Loki sitting crosslegged next to her, one hand buried in her dark tresses.</p><p>Happy holidays!</p>
            </blockquote>





	a griffin and a wyrm

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hiyas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hiyas/gifts).



Loki sits on the bed, his knees at Sif’s back. She kneels in front of him; her fine golden braid is heavy on her head, in Loki’s hands. “Cut it short, like yours,” Sif says, with tears in her eyes. “Please.”

The knife shines sharply when Loki picks it up.

Blonde strands of hair fall onto the floor between them as the knife saws through her braid. Sif takes deep breaths and tries not to let the tears fall. Her heart is heavier than uru-forged Mjölnir; her head is lighter than the clouds.                   

Neither of them speaks until Loki shakes her shorn hair out of the remains of her braid and says, “Lady, the deed is done.”

Sif touches her hair. It is not all gone, cut to shoulder length. “Liar,” she accuses him softly. “My hair is yet longer than yours.”

He pulls the loose hair back behind her head, away from her searching fingers. Sif feels her skin crawl as his hand ghosts along the curve of her ear. She sits there, passive and tired and ready to bawl like a babe, as he ties a leather thong around her newly-cut hair.

“It looks good on you,” Loki says, ignoring her objection.

He stands up; when he leaves the room, he does not look back at her.

 

Come sunrise, Sif finds herself lying down on her back upon a flowery hilltop with Loki sitting crosslegged next to her, one hand buried in her dark tresses.

She should find it odd to sit beside him now – Loki, the traitorous prince of Asgard. Loki, who tried to take Thor’s life. Loki, the lying silver-tongued wretch, who tried to kill _her_.

It should be odd, but the feel of his thin hand in her hair is as familiar to her now as it was in her youth; he winds dark locks around one finger absently as if he is not even thinking about it. As if there is no reason to think about it.

Her shift crinkles softly as she sits up, rests her elbows on her knees. Loki takes his hand from her hair, drops it down to his lap where the other hand awaits. His face is drawn and pensive from the sort of quiet that comes upon him when he is deep in thought.

Sif bumps his shoulder with her bare own, and he startles.

“You are thinking,” Sif says plainly.

“Yes,” Loki replies, rolling his eyes at her. “You ought to try it sometime, lady.”

"Don’t be an ass, trickster,” She huffs, knocking their shoulders together once more. “Of what are you thinking?”

“The Allmother,” Loki murmurs, averting his pale eyes from her and gazing at the rising sun. “I was not allowed to attend her funeral.”

“The Allfather said you did not wish to go,” Sif says, eyebrows raised, “and that he offered to allow your presence.”

This time, it is Loki who huffs. “Odin _lies_.”

"As if your tongue has never uttered a lie,” Sif says in answer.

Loki shrugs. “I’ve never lied,” He says in his most innocent voice, with the bright smile and big eyes she had seen him practice often in the looking-glass during their childhood.

Sif’s eyebrows raise even higher. Loki’s lip twitches. Sif laughs first, the sound broken up by undignified snorts as she falls back to lie on the ground once more. Loki joins in after a while, his laughter rich and throaty.

“That,” Sif says breathlessly, “was possibly your biggest lie yet, trickster.”

 

“Loki,” Sif calls him over. “Which of your mother’s tapestries do you think would look best here?”

Her husband surveys the wall. “The one… perhaps the one of the griffin and the wyrm.”

Her favorite – he knows her well. As Sif knows he is partial to the more florid ones himself, she wonders, briefly, if he is trying to please her. With what motives behind it, though? Does he want to please her because he ought as her husband? Because his own life will be easier if she is not scowling at a tapestry she does not like? Or…perhaps, because he hopes to evade something unpleasant? He has ever been a slippery creature.

Well, Sif has known him for all his life. She too can be slippery when need be.

“Have you prepared your bags for tomorrow’s visit, husband?” Sif asks blandly.

Loki is good at hiding his emotions – at times, he seems to have more in common with the bronze bust of himself in the palace than he does with other living beings – but the anxious look that flashes upon his face is not easily subdued. Sif lets him conceal this feeling from her a little while longer.

If Loki wants to avoid facing his emotions head-on (and, often, he does), then Sif will not stop him.

“Yes, I’ve packed,” he recovers quickly. “Have _you_?”

At least she knows he was simply trying to wriggle his way out of visiting the king tomorrow.

Sif nods. “Do you think we should put a bench here? Or perhaps a small table…?”

 

“Mm,” Sif murmurs. “Pass me the mead, Loki.”

Her husband looks askance at her. “I think you’ve rather had enough.”

Despite his protests, he reaches for another chalice. As he hands it to her, Sif notices how he avoids the eyes of many of the courtiers.

Gently resting her ankle on his foot – tactile reassurance, she’d learned, seems to help him where words never did – she thanks him.

The next few minutes are quiet between them. He has never been one for exuberance at feasts and she is not yet drunk enough to make a fuss about anything. A few tables down, she can hear Volstagg and Fandral loudly retelling a few rather embellished adventures of theirs.

“This is not as terrible as you’d imagined, is it?” Sif asks Loki.

His face is sour when he says “Oh, it is a thousand times worse, lady,” – but Sif feels that he is simply being overdramatic, as is his wont.

 

“Odin greeted you warmly,” she notes.

Loki grunts something and turns over, covering his head with a fur.

“Thor enjoyed seeing you,” Sif adds.

Her husband, now just a lump under the blankets, does not respond.

“I think many were pleased with your presence,” she says softly.

“Sif,” Loki says, his voice muffled. “Silence your tongue. _Some_ of us are trying to sleep.”

“And _some_ of us are trying to soothe the nerves of our neurotic husbands so that we both may sleep through the entire night worry-free,” Sif says in retort, placing her hand on the lump’s back.

Loki grumbles something and falls silent, presumably asleep, so Sif supposes she ought to as well.

 

Before they leave the room, Sif stops him. “Wait,” she says, one arm slung across his chest. She digs around in her boot with her free hand and draws a dagger. “I think,” she declares slowly, “my hair could do with a trim.”

Loki lets a flash of concern (and a flash of surprise) be seen in his eyes before he hides them away from his wife. He takes the knife from her. “How short?”

“Not very,” Sif says. “Perhaps an inch.”

"So I’ll cut it all off and ruin everything?”

“I would not be surprised if you did,” Sif muses. “For your own sake, however, do not. I might shave you bald in retribution.”

Loki laughs, husky, and Sif feels a part of her fundamental being relax. Though this palace was their home in youth, when all had crumbled during Loki’s madness, he’d never seemed particularly comfortable in it afterwards. But – if he can laugh, surely that must mean everything is returning to normality.

**Author's Note:**

> This...was really hard. When you say "write a post-canon Sifki fic", my mind jumps to drama and angst! I actually wrote about 5k words of the dramatic post-canon stuff I possibly could and then looked at it like "oops, that's the opposite of happy!"
> 
> Maybe I'll post it sometime later. I also meant for this to be longer, but the words didn't want to flow. :\ I like it anyways, though! Hope you enjoyed this (hopefully at least vaguely) happy Sifki fic, Hiyas! Happy holidays! <3


End file.
